Now rose up a mighty shout when Thiodolf came back to the battle of the
kindreds, for many thought he had been slain; and they gathered round
about him, and cried out to him joyously out of their hearts of
good-fellowship, and the old man who had rebuked Thiodolf, and who was
Jorund of the Wolfings, came up to him and reached out to him the
Hauberk, and he did it on scarce heeding; for all his heart and soul was
turned toward the battle of the Romans and what they were a-doing; and he
saw that they were falling back in good order, as men out-numbered, but
undismayed. So he gathered all his men together and ordered them afresh;
for they were somewhat disarrayed with the fray and the chase: and now he
no longer ordered them in the wedge array, but in a line here three deep,
here five deep, or more, for the foes were hard at hand, and outnumbered,
and so far overcome, that he and all men deemed it a little matter to
give these their last overthrow, and then onward to Wolf-stead to storm
on what was left there and purge the house of the foemen. Howbeit
Thiodolf bethought him that succour might come to the Romans from their
main-battle, as they needed not many men there, since there was nought to
fear behind them: but the thought was dim within him, for once more since
he had gotten the Hauberk on him the earth was wavering and dream-like:
he looked about him, and nowise was he as in past days of battle when he
saw nought but the foe before him, and hoped for nothing save the
victory. But now indeed the Wood-Sun seemed to him to be beside him, and
not against his will, as one besetting and hindering him, but as though
his own longing had drawn her thither and would not let her depart; and
whiles it seemed to him that her beauty was clearer to be seen than the
bodies of the warriors round about him. For the rest he seemed to be in
a dream indeed, and, as men do in dreams, to be for ever striving to be
doing something of more moment than anything which he did, but which he
must ever leave undone. And as the dream gathered and thickened about
him the foe before him changed to his eyes, and seemed no longer the
stern brown-skinned smooth-faced men under their crested iron helms with
their iron-covered shields before them, but rather, big-headed men, small
of stature, long-bearded, swart, crooked of body, exceeding foul of
aspect. And he looked on and did nothing for a while, and his head
whirled as though he had been grievously smitten.
Thus tarried the kindreds awhile, and they were bewildered and their
hearts fell because Thiodolf did not fly on the foemen like a falcon on
the quarry, as his wont was. But as for the Romans, they had now stayed,
and were facing their foes again, and that on a vantage-ground, since the
field sloped up toward the Wolfing dwelling; and they gathered heart when
they saw that the Goths tarried and forbore them. But the sun was
sinking, and the evening was hard at hand.
So at last Thiodolf led forward with Throng-plough held aloft in his
right hand; but his left hand he held out by his side, as though he were
leading someone along. And as he went, he muttered: "When will these
accursed sons of the nether earth leave the way clear to us, that we may
be alone and take pleasure each in each amidst of the flowers and the
sun?"
Now as the two hosts drew near to one another, again came the sound of
trumpets afar off, and men knew that this would be succour coming to the
Romans from their main-battle, and the Romans thereon shouted for joy,
and the host of the kindreds might no longer forbear, but rushed on
fiercely against them; and for Thiodolf it was now come to this, that so
entangled was he in his dream that he rather went with his men than led
them. Yet had he Throng-plough in his right hand, and he muttered in his
beard as he went, "Smite before! smite behind! and smite on the right
hand! but never on the left!"
Thus then they met, and as before, neither might the Goths sweep the
Romans away, nor the Romans break the Goths into flight; yet were many of
the kindred anxious and troubled, since they knew that aid was coming to
the Romans, and they heard the trumpets sounding nearer and more joyous;
and at last, as the men of the kindreds were growing a-wearied with
fighting, they heard those horns as it were in their very ears, and the
thunder of the tramp of footmen, and they knew that a fresh host of men
was upon them; then those they had been fighting with opened before them,
falling aside to the right and the left, and the fresh men passing
between them, fell on the Goths like the waters of a river when a sluice-
gate is opened. They came on in very good order, never breaking their
ranks, but swift withal, smiting and pushing before them, and so brake
through the array of the Goth-folk, and drave them this way and that way
down the slopes.
Yet still fought the warriors of the kindred most valiantly, making stand
and facing the foe again and again in knots of a score or two score, or
maybe ten score; and though many a man was slain, yet scarce any one
before he had slain or hurt a Roman; and some there were, and they the
oldest, who fought as if they and the few about them were all the host
that was left to the folk, and heeded not that others were driven back,
or that the Romans gathered about them, cutting them off from all succour
and aid, but went on smiting till they were felled with many strokes.
Howbeit the array of the Goths was broken and many were slain, and
perforce they must give back, and it seemed as if they would be driven
into the river and all be lost.
But for Thiodolf, this befell him: that at first, when those fresh men
fell on, he seemed, as it were, to wake unto himself again, and he cried
aloud the cry of the Wolf, and thrust into the thickest of the fray, and
slew many and was hurt of none, and for a moment of time there was an
empty space round about him, such fear he cast even into the valiant
hearts of the foemen. But those who had time to see him as they stood by
him noted that he was as pale as a dead man, and his eyes set and
staring; and so of a sudden, while he stood thus threatening the ring of
doubtful foemen, the weakness took him again, Throng-plough tumbled from
his hand, and he fell to earth as one dead.
Then of those who saw him some deemed that he had been striving against
some secret hurt till he could do no more; and some that there was a
curse abroad that had fallen upon him and upon all the kindreds of the
Mark; some thought him dead and some swooning. But, dead or alive, the
warriors would not leave their War-duke among the foemen, so they lifted
him, and gathered about him a goodly band that held its own against all
comers, and fought through the turmoil stoutly and steadily; and others
gathered to them, till they began to be something like a host again, and
the Romans might not break them into knots of desperate men any more.
Thus they fought their way, Arinbiorn of the Bearings leading them now,
with a mind to make a stand for life or death on some vantage-ground; and
so, often turning upon the Romans, they came in array ever growing more
solid to the rising ground looking one way over the ford and the other to
the slopes where the battle had just been. There they faced the foe as
men who may be slain, but will be driven no further; and what bowmen they
had got spread out from their flanks and shot on the Romans, who had with
them no light-armed, or slingers or bowmen, for they had left them at
Wolf-stead. So the Romans stood a while, and gave breathing-space to the
Markmen, which indeed was the saving of them: for if they had fallen on
hotly and held to it steadily, it is like that they would have passed
over all the bodies of the Markmen: for these had lost their leader,
either slain, as some thought, or, as others thought, banned from
leadership by the Gods; and their host was heavy-hearted; and though it
is like that they would have stood there till each had fallen over other,
yet was their hope grown dim, and the whole folk brought to a perilous
and fearful pass, for if these were slain or scattered there were no more
but they, and nought between fire and the sword and the people of the
Mark.
But once again the faint-heart folly of the Roman Captain saved his foes:
for whereas he once thought that the whole power of the Markmen lay in
Otter and his company, and deemed them too little to meddle with, so now
he ran his head into the other hedge, and deemed that Thiodolf's company
was but a part of the succour that was at hand for the Goths, and that
they were over-big for him to meddle with.
True it is also that now dark night was coming on, and the land was
unknown to the Romans, who moreover trusted not wholly to the dastards of
the Goths who were their guides and scouts: furthermore the wood was at
hand, and they knew not what it held; and with all this and above it all,
it is to be said that over them also had fallen a dread of some doom
anear; for those habitations amidst of the wild-woods were terrible to
them as they were dear to the Goths; and the Gods of their foemen seemed
to be lying in wait to fall upon them, even if they should slay every man
of the kindreds.
So now having driven back the Goths to that height over the ford, which
indeed was no stronghold, no mountain, scarce a hill even, nought but a
gentle swelling of the earth, they forebore them; and raising up the
whoop of victory drew slowly aback, picking up their own dead and
wounded, and slaying the wounded Markmen. They had with them also some
few captives, but not many; for the fighting had been to the death
between man and man on the Wolfing Meadow.